They are trying very hard to quell the panic button with this flu. Suspiciously hard. No flu suddenly kills a bunch of people, then really quickly disappears like they are claiming is going on. And there's no such thing as a flu that only kills Mexicans. I would take everything you hear on this with a grain of salt for awhile until we get real facts on what is really going on.

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer – 32 mins ago
McALLEN, Texas – Texas health officials on Tuesday announced the first death of a U.S. resident with swine flu, and said she was a 33-year-old schoolteacher who had recently given birth to a healthy baby.
The woman died early Tuesday and had been hospitalized since April 19, said Leonel Lopez, Cameron County epidemiologist.
Health officials stopped short of saying that swine flu caused the woman's death. State health department spokeswoman Carrie Williams said the woman had "chronic underlying health conditions" but wouldn't give any more details.
Lopez said the flu exacerbated the woman's condition. "The swine flu is very benign by itself," Lopez said. But "by the time she came to see us it was already too late."
The only other swine flu death in the U.S. was of a Mexico City boy who also had other health problems and had been visiting relatives in Brownsville, near Harlingen. He died last week at a Houston children's hospital.
There have been 26 other confirmed swine flu deaths, all in Mexico. Hundreds of cases of the disease have been confirmed in several countries, but mostly in Mexico and the U.S.
The teacher was from Harlingen, a city of about 63,000 near the U.S.-Mexico border. The school district where she worked announced it would close its schools for the rest of the week, though officials said anyone who might have contracted the disease from her would have shown symptoms by now.
The teacher was first seen by a physician April 14 and was hospitalized on the 19th. The woman delivered a healthy baby while hospitalized and stayed in the hospital until her death, said Lopez, who declined to give further details about the baby.
Doctors knew she had a flu when she came in, but did not know what kind, Lopez said. The area is undergoing a Type A influenza epidemic right now, of which the swine flu is one variety, he said. She was confirmed to have swine flu shortly before she died, he said.
Dr. Joseph McCormick, regional dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health's Brownsville campus, said the woman was extremely ill when she was hospitalized.
Mercedes Independent School District, where the woman taught, announced it would close its schools starting Wednesday and reopen May 11.
U.S. health officials changed course on their advice to schools Tuesday, saying they are no longer recommending that schools close for the swine flu. Last week, the government had advised schools to shut down for about two weeks if there were suspected cases of swine flu.
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Associated Press writers Alicia A. Caldwell in El Paso and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

Sometimes the spread of flu waxes and wanes. There may be more deaths in countries where the health care is substandard.

I have been impressed with the way the government has handled this situation. They are taking precautions ahead of time which some people interpret as meaning this flu will definitely be a pandemic. This is not necessarily so. Prevention is one of the key things with something like this happens.

While some are saying that it is not hitting as hard as expected it simply means that it may be dying out or may make a resurgence at a later time. We simple do not know and speculation can cause panic.

I don't think we can extrapolate when someone with a chronic illness dies means they have our DD. People with chronic diseases are the people who are at a higher risk with infections of this kind. Very sad but very true.

Take care.

gap
ETA. The above post was posted before my post. I thought there were deaths in Asia.[This Message was Edited on 05/05/2009]

tea-
I'm confused by your comments as well. "No flu only kills Mexicans." I don't think that's what's going on at all. It originated there, that's where the obvious "outbreak" was - that is the correlation.

you're right - they don't want panic - but they want an informed, cautious public. Apparently this strain (H1N1) is different from the H5N1 ( I believe that's what it was) that was a pandemic many many years ago, so it appears less serious. BUT...we don't know yet. They have said, that it can 'calm down' then come back worse.

I think the deaths in Mexico are probably from lack of adequate medical care perhaps.

Also - for that woman to be hospitalized since giving birth sounds like she had other health problems than FM or CFS. It could be anything - no need to speculate...heart problems, kidney, many many possibilities.

Swine flu claims first Valley victim
Comments 15 | Recommend 6
May 5, 2009 - 2:24 PM
Sara Perkins
The Monitor
MERCEDES — Swine flu claimed its first victim in the Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday, a 33-year-old Mercedes schoolteacher and mother who had recently given birth to her second child.

Health officials emphasized the Harlingen woman had "underlying health conditions" that complicated the otherwise mild virus and led to her death.

Judy Dominguez Trunnell had initially tested negative for the disease when she was hospitalized two weeks ago. Dr. Brian Smith, the regional director of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said a more recent test came back positive Tuesday.

Mercedes schools Superintendent Walter Watson said one of the district's teachers died Tuesday but would not give the woman's name, citing the family's wishes. He was not aware the teacher had been infected with swine flu until late Tuesday afternoon because of the first, negative test.

However, he confirmed details from health officials that matched up with Trunnell's death notice and verified that Trunnell worked for the school district.

Based on the initial test results, Mercedes students and teachers were told Tuesday that Trunnell had died of a virus, but not the swine flu. Grief counselors met with students and teachers Tuesday, Watson said.

"She's a wonderful person and we feel very sad that she passed on," he said. "We hope that she's in heaven waiting for us to come see her."

Mercedes school officials chose to close that district's campuses Tuesday, before health officials released the results of the second test.

"Our attendance started to drop a little bit because kids started getting sick," Watson said. "We decided we needed to be proactive about this."

He called the three-day recess "a healing period" for children who might be ill and asked parents to keep them home and away from movie theaters, malls and other gathering places.

"There's a great deal of uncertainty," he said. "We know we're at war with an enemy, but we don't even know what it looks like."

The disease's only other fatality in the United States thus far was a 23-month-old Mexican child with a serious respiratory condition. The boy was visiting Brownsville but died in a Houston hospital.

The Santa Rosa school district also decided to close its schools Tuesday, and the Weslaco school system announced its campuses would remain closed for another week. All told, eight public school districts and several private schools in the Rio Grande Valley have announced temporary closures to contain the virus.

Those announcements came alongside a recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that schools not close their doors, even in the face of confirmed cases of swine flu among students or staff.

"The new guidance will recommend schools cease closing with recognized cases if H1N1 flu," new Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a news conference Tuesday. "We hope this will alleviate some of the burdens on parents and workers. But keeping children safe and sound took the top priority until we knew more about this disease."

Watson said the Mercedes school district would try to help parents who could not make other arrangements for child care this week.

"We'll find a solution for them," he said. "We're not going to throw them out and tell them to figure it out."

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Sara Perkins covers Mission, western Hidalgo County, Starr County and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4472.

I heard about this on tv..she became ill, was hospitalized and developed pneumonia. Her body organs began to shut down and they were afraid they were going to lose her and the baby, so they did a C-section to save the baby. Her system was just too weakened by that time for them to save her, although she lived another two days, I believe. So terribly sad for the family, and I feel they tried to cover up the fact that it was the "Swine flu" due to panic in the school where she taught. Not right at all, in my opinion.